Marching home | Maine employers prepare for the return of the state's largest National Guard unit serving in Iraq

Back in November of 2003, Joe Hyatt got some unexpected news: The Maine Army National Guard's 133rd Engineer Battalion was being activated to serve in Iraq. Hyatt, vice president for human resources at Oakhurst Dairy in Portland, knew that Jim Jollotta, a route sales driver who'd worked for Oakhurst since 1967, was a member of the unit. So, Hyatt learned, was Scott Caron, an accounts receivable clerk who'd started work at Oakhurst just three days before learning he would be deployed. "Initially we were pretty surprised," Hyatt says. "We weren't really sure how to react; Jimmy had never been gone more than a couple weeks in the summer, which for us became routine."

In short order, Oakhurst, like hundreds of employers across Maine and the United States, learned what it means to lose employees to active duty in the military ˆ— something that's been increasingly common as the Department of Defense activates National Guard and Reserve Units for deployment overseas. Since the enactment of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act in October 1994, employers are prohibited from eliminating the jobs of employees who are on active duty. Instead, when employees return from being deployed, they must be offered a position that is"similar in status, seniority and pay" to the one they left, according to Maj. Steve Hatt, executive director of the Maine chapter of the National Committee for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve.

As the 133rd prepares to return to Maine from its deployment in Mosul, Iraq ˆ— expected in mid- to late March ˆ— employers like Oakhurst are getting ready for the 500-plus soldiers' return to work: planning welcome-back celebrations, determining the status of temporary workers who have filled in for the absent employees and, more quietly, discussing what changes to expect in employees who have spent the last 12 months in a war zone. Other Maine employers have yet to begin planning, or shy away from thoughts that the returning employee may not be exactly the same person who left for training at Fort Drum, N.Y., in January 2004.

The latter approach is not a wise one, according to military officials and mental health professionals. Like most soldiers stationed in Iraq in recent years, members of the 133rd have experienced recurrent shelling of their base, roadside attacks by insurgents and frequent uncertainty about their safety. Three members of the 133rd died in insurgent attacks, two of them in a noontime suicide bombing at the dining hall of Forward Operating Base Marez, where the unit is stationed, just before Christmas. Simply living in such an environment, whether a soldier actually witnessed any of the attacks first-hand, means that the transition back to civilian life and work will take some time, according to numerous experts interviewed for this story.

"All of the soldiers are going to experience something," says Maine Army National Guard Chaplain (Maj.) Andy Gibson. "That doesn't mean they're going to have mental health issues. It's absolutely normal to have certain symptoms when one has experienced what they've experienced. To be startled by a loud noise or to make sure that every door in the house is locked and every window is bolted is a normal reaction, so we tell everyone to anticipate that type of thing."

What's more, Gibson and other military officials say 15%-19% of soldiers returning from Iraq experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Unlike the typical reactions soldiers experience when returning home, which tend to emerge quickly then disappear, PTSD can take several months to appear. That means an employee who seems fine in May, for example, could be rattled in September. "I suspect that [the delay] is due to the fact that when one is girded for trauma, traumatic events, stress and so forth, your body and your mind are sort of revved up," Dr. William Winkenwerder, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, told National Public Radio in a Feb. 11 interview. "Then when you go into an environment when things are, quote, more normal, it takes a while for you to begin to experience the difference in those two environments. And that seems to be the point at which some things emerge."

The key for employers, experts say, is to be patient, be flexible and, most importantly, ask what the employee needs rather than assuming anything. "In preliminary contacts, [the employer should say], 'We're really glad you're coming back, and we'd really like you to take a few minutes and think about, what do you think you're going to need from us?'" says Bill Wypyski, clinical director at Acadia Hospital in Bangor. "Make that the mantra ˆ— 'Let's be open and honest and figure this out.'"

Getting the job done
While the 133rd and other Maine National Guard units have been deployed, employers have used a variety of strategies to fill the missing employees' positions. At Portland law firm Pierce Atwood, employees typically work in teams, according to Deborah Shaw, a partner in the firm's energy practice group. So when Adam Cote, a third-year associate, was called up with the 133rd, his work was reallocated among other members of the team. "We didn't have to adjust, although he definitely was missed," Shaw says of Cote. "When you have a third-year associate in a specialized practice like energy, they have acquired a familiarity and comfort level with the subject that is missed."

A much different operation, Hancock Lumber's Bethel sawmill, dealt with the absence of employee Ernie Aguilar, also in the 133rd, in much the same way. Aguilar worked in Hancock's kiln-drying operation, as well as in the shipping department and in the mill, according to Kevin Raven, the sawmill's general manager. "We've just kind of shifted some people around," Raven says. "It's not a hassle at all ˆ— we constantly train backups anyway."

Other firms, such as WABI-TV in Bangor and Oakhurst Dairy, hired temporary workers to fill in for absent employees. Mike Young, general manager of WABI, says the station hired a temporary photojournalist to fill in for Mark Rediker, who has spent the past year performing detainee operations at Abu Ghraib Prison as a member of the 152nd Field Artillery unit, which returned to Maine in mid-February. Young says the station would like to create another position for the temp: "He didn't replace Mark, certainly, but we hope to find a way to keep him," he says.

At Oakhurst, Jollotta's co-workers have been filling in on his delivery route, while Caron's position was filled by a temporary worker. Oakhurst, too, has decided to hire the replacement permanently in order to fill another position that opened up while Caron was gone. Managers in the accounting department have been putting in overtime to get the work done in the meantime, according to HR director Hyatt.

While all the employers interviewed for this story say employees pitched in willingly to cover shifts or take on assignments for their absent co-workers, mental health and military officials say it's natural for those left behind to feel a little uneasy when soldiers return to work. "You can't assume anything on how people will feel," says Wypyski of Acadia Hospital. "We would like to assume that everyone will be real excited, but there could also be some unexpected odd feelings of resentment ˆ— we're human."

And, points out Hatt of Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, co-workers will be going through changes of their own. "When you take an employee out of an operation and you've got temporary employees and co-workers trying to do all the work that's left behind, there are going to be lots of different feelings that surface when this employee comes back ˆ— not because they're not supportive, it's just going to be a transition," he says. "It wouldn't be any different if you left your job for 12 weeks on medical leave."

An exercise in empathy
One factor that may ease the transition back to work is the relatively frequent communication many soldiers have had with their employers and colleagues. At Pierce Atwood, the e-mail contact with Cote was so voluminous, Deborah Shaw says, that the firm designated one employee as a conduit for employees' messages. "I understand he could only get to a computer so often, and we didn't want him to have 50 e-mails from Pierce Atwood, so [Cote's administrative assistant] would condense them into one or two messages," Shaw says.

Other soldiers stopped in to visit co-workers when they were home on leave during the year. Oakhurst threw a pizza party at its Waterville depot when Jollotta came back in the fall; at the gathering, Hyatt says, Jollotta showed co-workers the computerized maps he'd made of the location of IEDs, improvised explosive devices, on side roads in northern Iraq. "We tried not to take too much time up [when Jollotta and Caron visited] because it was precious for their families," says Hyatt. "We just wanted to see them and make sure they understood their positions belong to them, and that we miss them."

That kind of contact, experts say, can help returning soldiers ease back into work, although many employees will take some time between returning to Maine and heading in to the office or the mill. When members of the 133rd return, many of them will still be considered on active duty, since they'll be using up whatever leave they've accumulated. Once their military orders end, though, legally they have 90 days in which to contact their employer about coming back to work.

"When we have the opportunity to brief the soldiers and sailors and military folks, we encourage them to be in touch with their employer" soon after they return, says Hatt. "We've had issues where an employer sees all the publicity of people welcoming back the unit and doesn't hear from the employee for weeks and months at a time. Even though law protects them, there's still some sensitivity that the employee should use."

As employers prepare for soldiers' return, experts say they ought to exercise empathy. "The employer needs to understand that this is a major transition for the person who's returning ˆ— major. I think it would be important for the employer or supervisor to take some time to imagine what it might be like for this person to go from Iraq back to Maine," says Christopher Behan, assistant director of training for Sweetser, the Saco-based mental health agency. "It will be a difficult exercise, and they probably won't get it exactly right. But taking the time to be empathetic to this experience of going from one place to another will help the supervisor or employer to be more in tune to the experience of that person."

As challenging as the experience of having employees called to active duty has been, employers say it's provided some unanticipated benefits. "It's had a positive effect on employee morale," says Hyatt of Oakhurst Dairy. "We've collected money from employees a number of times, and we sent it to the troops so they could use it for whatever they needed. It's brought people together. Even for those employees who really believe [the occupation of Iraq] is wrong, they have rallied around these guys."

Shaw of Pierce Atwood agrees: "There is a difference between supporting people like Adam [Cote] and supporting the Bush administration, and people completely see that difference. I would say some of the most ardent critics of the war are some of the most ardent supporters of Adam ˆ— it's not the same issue."

In the end, says Hyatt, memories of previous conflicts dictate the way he and other Maine employers have chosen to respond to their employees' time on active duty. "I remember Vietnam very distinctly ˆ— how much the troops were almost hated," he says. "That lingering memory made it almost intolerable that it would happen that way again."